


i need you so much closer

by matsuhanasss



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Childhood Friends, Childhood Friends to Lovers, Depression, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internalized Homophobia, Living Together, M/M, Not Beta'd, Not Proofread, References to Depression, Slow Burn, Wakes & Funerals, i am Not sorry for this luv yall, i do not read over for i am brave
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matsuhanasss/pseuds/matsuhanasss
Summary: Kuroo is seven years old when he meets Kenma.
Relationships: Kozume Kenma/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	i need you so much closer

**Author's Note:**

> hi
> 
> i hope u enjoy
> 
> the title is from transatlanticism by death cab for cutie. you can listen to it [here](https://open.spotify.com/track/0DoACS30GwIY6qaFjCMMUz?si=5madtmFmTreyBAr6oiIUIw).
> 
> you can listen to the playlist i made while writing the playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6NCrl8ghcepQoKABPvWCJD?si=6VrkjlvZTbyn5_bMhF-CNA).

Kuroo is seven years old when he meets Kenma.

Kuroo is the new kid in the neighborhood and no kids seem to be interested in meeting the new neighbors until school starts. Kenma is his neighbor, a year younger than him and in the grade below him—when they meet, though, Kuroo doesn’t think he’s ever latched onto someone faster. Kuroo becomes attached at Kenma’s hip, and while Kenma seems disinterested, he never pushes Kuroo away. Seven-year-old Kuroo thinks that his best friend doesn’t think of him as a best friend, but he’ll later learn that Kuroo was a lifeline to Kenma—something that tethered him down year after year after year when there was no one else there to hold his hand.

At seven-years-old, Kuroo is too nervous to introduce himself to the neighbor kid. He hides behind his mother’s legs until she coaxes him out to see a small boy around his age. The boy is bouncing on the balls of his heels and when he sees Kuroo, his eyes glance up to his mother in anxious anticipation. Kenma is a restless boy when he’s young, but so is Kuroo. While Kenma takes all his energy out inside and plays video games, Kuroo tries different sports and prefers the outside world. 

When Kuroo breaks his arm a month later after falling out of a tree, he makes his way over to Kenma’s house (all by himself, because his mother said he’s growing up to be a big strong boy and it’s just a short walk from the house). He greets Kenma’s mother with a large smile, filled with missing teeth and youth, and she directs him to Kenma’s room with a soft smile. Kuroo bounds upstairs, excited to show off the cast on his arm, but when he swings the door open he’s disappointed to find a soundly sleeping Kenma. He makes himself comfy on the floor, waiting for Kenma to wake up on his own. After an hour of waiting, Kuroo huffs and wakes Kenma up on his own, much to Kenma’s dismay. Six-year-old Kenma complains more loudly than a future Kenma does.

When Kuroo turns eight, Kenma is the only person he invites to his birthday. Despite the fact the school year has started, he doesn’t have many friends. He’s smart, probably smarter than most of the kids in class, but specifically in math and science. He can’t seem to connect with the other kids in his class; none of them compare to Kenma and the way he understands Kuroo. So, when Kuroo turns eight, Kenma is the only one to show up to his birthday party. 

“If we were born in the same year, I would be older than you,” Kenma states while they’re laying on Kuroo’s bed, staring at the glow-the-dark stars he got for his birthday. It’s a simple fact, because Kenma would be. Almost by a month, exactly. Instead, he’s younger by a year. 

“Instead, I’m the older one,” Kuroo says. Kenma huffs, rolling over to face Kuroo. Even now, Kenma’s hair is longer than most boys would have let it grow to be. Kuroo wonders why he lets it grow out so long, because surely it must get in his face and surely he must be teased for it. But his mother never makes him cut it shorter than he wants, only trimming the ends when they need to be. Now, the hair falls in front of Kenma’s face and he tries to blow it out of his face to no avail. 

“Why don’t you ever cut your hair?” Kuroo asks. Kenma tucks the strands behind his ear gently. 

“It makes me feel safe,” he says. And Kuroo raises an eyebrow, but when Kenma doesn’t provide anything else, Kuroo doesn’t ask for anything else. They go back to laying in silence, turning their attention back toward the ceiling. Kuroo thinks he’s up far longer than Kenma is, but seven year old Kenma stays awake until four am watching the stars on the ceiling. He pretends that they’re real, that he’s out in his backyard with Kuroo, their sticky fingers pointing out the little constellations they know. 

Kuroo graduates from elementary school a year before Kenma does. Kuroo cries more than Kenma, he thinks, when they get home together.

“It’s just one year, Kuro,” Kenma says. His hands are shoved in his sweatshirt pocket and his expression is unreadable. What Kuroo doesn’t know is that Kenma is pulling at his fingers, cracking his knuckles—once, twice, thrice—to keep himself from crying. 

“I know! But that’s so long!” Kuroo says, clearly distraught with tears still running down his cheeks. They’re outside on his porch, Kenma knocking his heels against the steps while Kuroo cries beside him. Finally, Kuroo slumps over, head resting on Kenma’s shoulder. He’s tired himself out from all the crying.

“We’re still neighbors,” Kenma says and, sure, it’s long after Kuroo’s said that a year is a long time, but Kenma doesn’t really care. Kuroo nods against his shoulder. “So we can still see each other every day.” Kenma will never admit out loud how scared he is of Kuroo forgetting about him. 

“Yeah,” Kuroo says, nodding again. “Yeah.”

“We should go inside.” Kenma helps Kuroo stand. They stare at the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling. When Kenma starts crying, tears rolling down his cheeks with soft little sniffles, Kuroo links their pinkies together. This is the first time Kuroo thinks Kenma has fallen asleep before him. He only knows when he turns to look at Kenma, whose eyes are shut, mouth slightly parted, and chest moving up and down in a steady rhythm. 

The year without Kenma is hard for Kuroo, and the year without Kuroo is hard for Kenma. Kuroo tries to take it in stride, though, talking to people he’s never talked to before and making new friends. He becomes more outgoing, and maybe that’s a mask to protect himself. Loud, goofball is a lot more likeable than whatever he was before, clearly. But being with Kenma is when the carefully constructed facade is no more and he makes his stupid science jokes and makes a complete fool out of himself, but this time on accident. It makes Kenma smile. 

On a snowy December day, Kuroo bounds his way towards Kenma’s room. Kenma’s mother doesn’t seem to notice—that, or she doesn’t try to stop him—and when he swings the door open to the bedroom, he finds Kenma curled up in a hoard of blankets and holding a pillow. He hears rough little sobs coming from where Kenma has confined himself and Kuroo’s stomach _drops_. His Kenma is in a state of ruin and he doesn’t know why (later, this will be something Kuroo sees what he thinks is a scarily frequent amount, but we’re getting too far ahead there). 

“What’s wrong?” he asks, sliding in front of Kenma. Kenma bites his knuckle, staring at Kuroo with red-rimmed eyes and flushed cheeks. 

“Nothing,” he says. And Kuroo wants to scream, wants Kenma to tell him wants wrong, but instead he says nothing. He opens his arms for his best friend, where said best friend promptly falls into them and lets loose. Kuroo strokes his hair, saying nothing as he holds Kenma. Once the tears stop falling and he’s done heaving, Kenma falls asleep. He’s always fallen asleep after crying, Kuroo thinks. When he was eight, he had fallen off his bike and scraped his knee badly. Kenma had cried so hard he fell asleep in his mother’s arms when she finished patching him up. 

When Kenma gets to the middle school, it’s relieving. Sure, they don’t see each other very often, but when they pass each other in the halls they have at least a little time to talk. They at least greet each other, if the other is in a rush. 

When Kuroo is thirteen years old, he learns that boys who like boys aren’t normal. Kuroo feels his stomach drop and his nerves jitter, and he wonders if Kenma knows this. Then, he thinks about the way Kenma makes him feel, and decides thinking about Kenma is a bad decision. Kuroo, later that day, learns that the word they’re treating like a bad word, like an insult, is ‘gay’. Kuroo tucks the word away for a later date and a later conversation he’ll have with Kenma. 

It rains for two days after that. Kenma and Kuroo walk to school with umbrellas over their heads; Kuroo is unusually silent, stuck in his head too much. Kenma doesn’t seem to mind, but Kenma’s always been one for silence rather than conversation. 

Sixteen isn’t what everyone makes it out to be. Maybe that’s because Kuroo doesn’t have many ‘friends’, rather people he calls acquaintances and will see only on the weekdays. He’s grown lanky and all his clothes feel like they fit on him wrong. Pants are too short, shirts are _too short_ , everything is too short. 

The moon is the only light shining through the window, cut up by the light blue curtains Kuroo has had up since he was ten. The glow in the dark stars that are stuck to the ceiling still glow a dim green. Kuroo misses when they were bright and vibrant. He misses when he and Kenma were small and didn’t have to press so close together on the bed so that one of them wasn’t falling off. There are a lot of things Kuroo misses. One of them is when he didn’t dream of kissing his best friend, lips trailing from his mouth to his jaw. He hears Kenma make a sound from right beside him, jarring him from his thoughts.

“Kuroo, what would you do if I told you I was gay?” Kenma says, voice soft. When Kuroo turns to look at him, his eyes are fixed on the stars on the ceiling. Kuroo stays silent. He doesn’t know what to say.

“It’s just… a hypothetical, but if I was, would you stop being friends with me?” Kuroo turns to look back at the stars. He thinks about the real ones outside—the ones that have probably already exploded. Dead and gone, but still seen on earth. Kuroo wonders why they gave such beautiful names to something so destructive.

“No.”

Kenma doesn’t bring up the conversation ever again, so neither does Kuroo. Kenma is rather normal after that, while Kuroo can’t get it out of his head that his best friend _might_ be gay. If Kuroo is being honest with himself, there is no might to the situation. Kenma is gay; he’d practically admitted it that night. He’d admitted it in the safety of his best friends bedroom while staring at the glow in the dark stars they had put up together. 

Kenma is lying in his backyard when Kuroo finds him. His eyes are closed, but his breathing is still rushed and ragged—nothing like it would be if Kenma were asleep. And Kuroo thinks about the fact he can recognize the way Kenma’s stomach moves when he’s asleep. Then, Kuroo thinks, he can tell when Kenma is really asleep, because he’s caught Kenma asleep too few times to not stare for minutes and hours. To memorize the way he looks, lashes resting on his cheeks, hands pillowed under his head, and the way his mouth parts slightly. 

Kuroo thinks his best friend is beautiful.

“Hey,” he says softly when he sits criss-cross beside Kenma on the grass. Kenma doesn’t startle; he slowly peels his eyes open and glances up at Kuroo. 

“Hi,” he says, eyes directed back at the sky. Kuroo rests an elbow on his knee, placing his cheek in the palm of his hand to stare at Kenma. “You’re staring.”

“I know,” Kuroo says. Kenma glances over at him again, a small smile dancing on his lips. Kuroo lets out a soft chuckle. But Kuroo’s lopsided smile slips into a look of seriousness. His nose scrunches up and he draws his eyebrows together.

“How did you know?” Kuroo asks. 

“Know what?” Kenma asks. 

“That you were gay.” Kenma closes his eyes and sighs, before pushing himself to sit up. He leans back on his hands in the grass. 

“I dunno,” he says. “I think it was just something I always knew. Even before I heard the word.”

“The boys on the playground treated it like a curse word.”

“That’s what they’ll do with anything they don’t understand.” And Kenma says it so factually, Kuroo has no other choice but to believe him. “But I don’t think it’s scary.” 

“Oh,” Kuroo says. Kenma tilts his head up to the sky, removing his gaze from the tree he was staring at. He heaves a heavy sigh.

“Why are you asking?” he asks. Kuroo blinks and then tilts his head toward the sky too.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s what I thought.” Kuroo wants to ask what he means, what any of this means, but he doesn't. He keeps his mouth closed and lays on his back to look at the stars. He wonders how many of them have already exploded. 

They don’t talk about that, either. Kenma seems a little more wary around him, but not in a bad way. Kenma spends more time observing from afar, rather than interacting. When Kuroo sits on his bed, doing readings for assignments, Kenma will scamper over to a corner of the room and just watch Kuroo. 

“Why are you watching me?” Kuroo asks one day. Kenma blinks and shrugs. Kuroo narrows his eyes.

“You can be honest with me,” Kuroo says. Kenma sighs, shifting his chin to sit on the top of his knees. 

“You’re off. I’m just trying to map new territory,” Kenma says. Kuroo leans back, shoulders relaxing. Of course, it’s not really an explanation because Kuroo doesn’t _feel_ off, but Kenma’s always been more observant than Kuroo could ever dream of being. 

“I don’t feel off,” Kuroo says. Kenma shrugs. Kuroo goes back to his reading and Kenma finds something to occupy himself with. And that’s what it’s like for the next few days, maybe even weeks. The time starts to blend together to Kuroo, days and weeks beginning to jumble into one big day. So, clearly Kenma was right when he said that Kuroo was off. 

“Kenma,” Kuroo says, turning to look at the boy who’s laying on the bed. Kenma hums. “What if I wanted to kiss someone?” 

“Why are you asking me?” Kenma says, turning over to face Kuroo, his switch laying face-up on the bed.

“The person is possibly a boy,” Kuroo says. Kenma snorts, turning over to pick up his switch again.

“You think I care?” Kenma says. There’s a slight bite to his words that Kuroo doesn’t understand. “You can kiss whoever you want.”

“Please look at me.” Kenma turns back over. “Sit up.” Kenma groans, but obliges. Kuroo puts his hands on Kenma’s jaw, and directs his face to look Kuroo in the eyes. 

“Kuroo?” Kenma says, voice terribly soft.

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Kenma says breathlessly, eyes flickering to Kuroo’s lips. When Kuroo connects their lips, he feels _alive_. Electric, even. Kenma makes his hands at home on the sides of Kuroo’s throat, practically pulling himself into Kuroo’s lap. Kenma’s lips are chapped, but with him this close Kuroo can smell the citrus of his shampoo and lavender of the laundry detergent his mom uses. The smell is intoxicating. When they pull apart, Kenma’s eyes stay closed.

“Was that practice for the boy you want to kiss?” he says. Kuroo huffs.

“No, you idiot, _you’re_ the boy I want to kiss,” Kuroo says, brushing a thumb across Kenma’s flushed cheekbones. Kenma’s eyes flutter open and he has the audacity to look shocked. 

“Thank god,” Kenma says. Their foreheads are still pressed together. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I was thirteen.” Kuroo laughs, pulling them apart so he can let out a loud and ugly cackle. Kenma cringes at the volume of the laugh, but the small grin never leaves his face.

Kenma is sobbing in a hoard of blankets again. 

It’s not the first time Kuroo has come across this situation. It happened a few times when Kenma was young, and a scary amount now. And every time, Kuroo will bundle Kenma into his arms and pet his hair, whispering soft words into his ear. Kenma will then sob himself to sleep in Kuroo’s arms, and Kuroo’s heart breaks the same every time. 

This time, Kenma is curled so tightly in on himself that Kuroo doesn’t know what to do. Of course, he tries to peel the blankets away from Kenma’s face, but he wraps them tighter around himself. Kuroo tries everything he knows to do, but Kenma only curls in tiger and tighter on himself. Kuroo feels so lost. So, Kuroo places himself beside the bed, his back against as he waits for Kenma’s fingers to relax from their death grip on the blankets, signaling he’s asleep. When the blankets finally fall from his face a little, Kuroo sees the red marks all over, and the little scratches on his cheeks and nose. Kuroo’s stomach falls and his blood boils because who would do this to _his_ Kenma? He slowly unravels Kenma from the blankets and places him in his lap, where he lets Kenma sleep for hours. 

Kuroo knows Kenma is awake when Kenma digs his face deeper into Kuroo’s chest.

“Good morning,” Kuroo murmurs. Kenma makes a strangled noise against Kuroo’s chest. “Do you wanna tell me who did that to your face?”

“No,” Kenma says. 

“Does your mom know?”

“No.”

“Kenma,” Kuroo says.

“It’s not a big deal, okay?” Kenma snaps, pulling his face from Kuroo’s chest. “It’s fine. I’ve got it under control.”

“It _is_ a big deal, though, Kenma.” Kuroo puts his hands on Kenma’s upper arms. “Your face is bruised. You have cuts on your face. You didn’t tell your _mom_.” 

“It’s fine. I’m fine, Kuroo. I promise.” Kenma sticks out a pinky finger. Kuroo notices the palms of his hands are scratched and raw from pavement, too. Kuroo, although hesitant, locks his pinky with Kenma’s. Kuroo runs a finger across the cut on Kenma’s nose.

“Okay.”

It’s unusual for Kenma to find Kuroo sobbing. Kuroo tries to hide when he cries—blames the sniffles on a stuffed up nose, tries to scrub the flush from his cheeks before he ever sees someone, but there’s always something off that Kenma notices. But this time, Kenma walks into Kuroo’s room unannounced. Kuroo only hears the soft turning of the doorknob and he shoves a hand over his mouth and turns away, trying to quiet his sobs. 

“Kuroo?” calls Kenma’s soft voice. Kuroo chokes back a sob, burying himself a little deeper into the blanket he has curled around his shoulders. He hears Kenma pad over softly to his bedside and when he feels the hand gently touch his shoulder, Kuroo crumbles in on himself. He lets the sobs wrack his body as Kenma retracts his hand and moves to sit in front of him. He gently guides Kuroo’s head out from where Kuroo has tucked it tightly between his knees to hold it in his hands. He brushes the tears away from Kuroo’s eyes and holds his face in the palm of his hands. 

“What’s wrong?” Kenma asks, his voice so soft Kuroo feels like he could just melt. And there’s _so much_ that’s wrong. Kuroo feels all wrong on the inside, because the thing he thinks is right has always been taught to him as wrong. 

And Kuroo doesn’t know how to tell Kenma that he’s terrified of loving him. 

Instead, he falls forward, nearly collapsing Kenma. Kenma wraps his arms around Kuroo’s shoulders and he doesn’t say anything. He just rests his chin on top of Kuroo’s head, playing gently with the hair on the nape of Kuroo’s neck. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Kenma asks. His voice is soft and pleasant, soothing in Kuroo’s ear. Kuroo digs his face deep into Kenma’s neck.

“Not really.”

“Okay.” Kenma continues to mess with Kuroo’s hair, and Kuroo listens to Kenma’s heartbeat through his throat. The way Kenma is cradling Kuroo like he’s something fragile, something that can so easily be broken, makes Kuroo want to break down into tears again. He feels like he doesn’t deserve the softness, like it’s something that deserves to stay out of his reach, but always a fingertip length away—and yet Kenma gives it to him.

What in the world allowed him to deserve Kenma?

And for all the rough patches sixteen brought, and how scary it was; how horrifying the world seemed to him when it got bigger, Kenma was there. Kenma was there when Kuroo started to drive, Kenma was there to hold him while he cried, Kenma was there for everything. And Kuroo hoped he was there for everything.

For all the scares sixteen held, seventeen held college applications and the end of high school. This subsequently meant that Kuroo was also leaving Kenma. That’s what scared Kuroo the most, the fact that he would be so far from Kenma all the time in only a year. What if Kenma forgot about him? What if he forgot about Kenma? The most horrifying thought was what if they drifted apart? There wasn’t a label on their relationship, per se, but they were more than friends, Kuroo could gather that much. Because best friends didn’t kiss and best friends didn’t feel like a crime and best friends didn’t feel like scary and unmapped territory. 

So, Kuroo was scared of a lot. More than he could ever admit. 

“Are you scared?” Kuroo asks one afternoon. Kenma’s leg is lying in his lap, his attention solely focused on the game that’s on the TV.

“About what?” Kenma asks. His fingers never stop moving and his eyes stay glued to the TV.

“Me leaving.” Kuroo rips it off like a bandaid. There’s no point in pretending it’s going to be an easy subject to talk about.

“I mean, yeah, but I think I’ll be fine,” Kenma says, shrugging. “It was gonna happen eventually.” Kuroo doesn’t know what to say. The smashing of buttons continues. That’s the end of the conversation. 

So, when Kuroo does leave, no tears are shed. He tries to take the leave in stride and he’s proud of himself, really, but his stomach feels uneasy. And the unease proves to be right when Kuroo is headed to class one day when Kenma would be in his fourth period and his phone rings. It’s Kenma.

“Kenma? Aren’t you in school?” Kuroo asks, before he hears the heaving of breaths through the phone and muffled, choked sobs. “Kenma?”

“J—just kee-keep talking t-to me,” Kenma says. Kuroo feels his stomach drop and he can see, so vividly, the image of Kenma curled up in a bathroom stall at school and he feels his heart shatter into a million pieces. So Kuroo does what Kenma told him to do: he keeps talking.

“Being a business major fucking sucks.”

Kuroo goes home as soon as he can. When he sees the free opportunity, he seizes it. He takes it in his hands and grabs his car keys, practically running to his car. The two hour drive to his home feels like fourteen and when he’s there, he clambers out of his car in Kenma’s driveway and makes his presence known in the loudest way possible. Kenma’s mom greets him, and she gives him a sad and watery smile, but nods her head to Kenma’s room.

“He’ll be happy to see you,” she says. Kuroo just nods, already making his way to Kenma’s room before she’s finished her sentence. He doesn’t even bother knocking. When he pushes the door open, he finds Kenma staring at his ceiling flat on his back. He’s laying on top of his covers—the aura of exhaustion hits Kuroo like a wave, and all he wants to do is curl up beside Kenma and _sleep_. Kuroo drags himself to Kenma’s bedside.

“Hi,” Kuroo says. Kenma continues staring ahead. Kuroo notices the fresh red marks, bruises, and cuts decorating Kenma’s face. He wishes he hadn’t.

“Is this what you called me about?” Kuroo asks, placing a hand on Kenma’s cheek. 

“Mom found out.”

“I can tell,” Kuroo says. “She seemed upset.”

“I don’t know if she’s more upset about the fact I’m getting beat up or the fact that I’m gay.” That feels like a slap to Kuroo’s face.

“Did you tell her about us?”

“No,” Kenma says. “God, I’ve been staring at this ceiling for so long.”

“What do you mean?” Kuroo asks, sitting on his knees.

“I’m so tired.”

“Of what?”

“Of everything,” Kenma laughs. “This is so fucking tiring.”

Kuroo doesn’t say anything, because what is there to say? No matter what Kuroo tries to say, nothing will comfort Kenma. If Kuroo threatened the people who were doing this to him, he would only get mad and tell Kuroo he could handle this _himself_ —though, that seemed to be going rather poorly.

“When it started I fought back,” Kenma says. “I did last time.” 

“That’s good!” Kuroo says, trying to be encouraging.

“I’m not going to anymore.” Kenma closes his eyes. Kuroo wants to ask why, scream it at the top of his lungs, but he recognizes the bags under Kenma’s eyes and says nothing. He screws his mouth shut and rests his head on the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

Eighteen isn’t any different. Kuroo visits home as often as he can, talks to Kenma nearly every day, and when Kuroo learns Kenma has gotten into the same university as him, he celebrates. They’re in Kuroo’s bedroom, bodies light as they stare up at the ceiling. The glow in the dark stars are still there, their light dim, but still illuminating. 

“Why do you still have those up?” Kenma asks, kicking Kuroo’s leg. Kuroo kicks back.

“I dunno. They remind me of when I was younger.”

“Spoken like a true old man,” Kenma laughs. Kuroo fakes an offended gasp.

“Hey! You’re only a year younger than me!” Kuroo says.

“And?” Kenma says, turning his head to face Kuroo. 

“I’m gonna kiss you.”

“Okay.” The kiss is gentle and it isn’t there first, nor is it their last, but something about it is different. Kuroo can’t quite place his finger on it, but laying there, lazily kissing Kenma feels so right. His hand sits limply against Kenma’s jaw, where Kenma’s hand lays on top of it. And everything Kuroo has been taught unravels in his stomach, the gripping nausea that used to put him in a chokehold when he kissed Kenma dissipates—not entirely, but almost. He thinks about the schoolyard taunts about boys being gay and finds that they’re not all that scary anymore. Twelve year old boys were mean, 

“Can I call you my boyfriend?” Kenma asks, soft against his lips. Kuroo feels his face flush.

“Y-yeah,” he says, breathless. Kenma smiles, pressing their lips together again. The stars on the ceiling seem to glow a little brighter. 

When Kenma moves in for college, Kuroo is a jittery ball of nerves. He knows Kenma is worse because the thought of talking to people he doesn’t know makes him want to dry heave into a toilet and Kuroo can’t _imagine_ what a new city is like. But when he sees Kenma, Kenma gives him a wobbly smile from over the top of a cardboard box that says ‘games’. He’s let his hair grow out, the blonde finally being stomped out by the black. It’s in a little bun on top of Kenma’s head, with strands falling around his face. And, suddenly, Kuroo realizes the sweatshirt that Kenma is wearing is one of _his_ sweatshirts; Kuroo feels so many emotions overwhelming him at once that he feels his eyes glaze over with tears.

“Oh, god, don’t cry,” Kenma says, laughing quietly. 

“Sorry,” Kuroo says, a watery laugh escaping his lips. Kenma sits the box down on his bed, opening his arms for Kuroo to engulf him. 

“I missed you,” Kuroo mumbles into Kenma’s hair.

“You saw me last week,” Kenma says, voice muffled from being pressed into Kuroo’s chest. 

“Sure, I did. But now you’re here in my hands, and you get to stay here for, like, years now,” Kuroo says, pulling out of the hug to hold Kenma at an arm's length away. Kuroo takes in his face. He knows all the scars on Kenma’s face, how awful the bags under his eyes look, every blemish and dark mark; he _knows_ Kenma’s face. He’s put it to memory, staring any chance he got when he did finally see Kenma for short weekends. 

For the first year of university, Kenma will live in the dorms. Then, they’ve decided, he will move into the apartment with Kuroo. When Kuroo turns nineteen, Kenma is actually there to celebrate with him and not a phone call before Kuroo goes to sleep. Kenma meets his friends, Bokuto and Akaashi and Tsukishima (an array of personalities, the only one Kenma melds with being Akaashi’s), and Kuroo is happy. He feels at ease, easy bubbles of laughter escaping his mouth and light grins on his face. 

When Kenma moves into the apartment, Kuroo feels only a little nervous. Of course, they’d practically lived together growing up, but now they had something to call their own. Something that was theirs and only theirs—something that did not deserve to be intruded on by an outsider. And instead of it just being _Kuroo’s_ bedroom, it becomes _their_ bedroom; their kitchen, their living room. Theirs, theirs, theirs. Kuroo gets to wake up in the morning and press gentle kisses all over Kenma’s face until he wakes up and on the days that Kenma wakes up earlier than Kuroo—rare, but welcomed—, he can wake up to the smell of breakfast or lunch being made for the two of them. 

Kuroo tucks a strand of hair behind Kenma’s ear. 

“Good morning,” he says, a feather light touch crossing Kenma’s cheek and nose. Kenma’s eyes are half-lidded, sleep still riddling his body. He blinks slowly, hand searching for Kuroo’s under the blanket. “Did you sleep well?”

Kenma sighs, breathing slowly like he’s asleep again. And for a few minutes, Kuroo thinks he is asleep again. 

“It was alright,” Kenma says, voice softer than usual. It gets like that early in the morning, thick with sleep and Kuroo thinks it’s a sound he could get high to. “I didn’t have to take melatonin, though, so.”

“That’s something,” Kuroo smiles. Kenma hums, rolling on his back to wipe at his eyes and stretch out. Kuroo watches him and he notices the collar of the shirt Kenma’s wearing slip down to reveal a sliver of collarbone and shoulder. They’re places Kuroo has mapped out before, with fingers and mouth, and they’re Kuroo’s favorite places to touch. 

It’s a month (maybe two, Kuroo can’t really count the days apart) into living together when Kuroo notices the scars on Kenma’s thighs. It’s then that Kuroo can’t really remember a time where Kenma had worn shorts around the house, in high school and now. Of course, Kenma had to wear shorts for volleyball back in high school, but there were other things to focus on at the time other than Kenma’s thighs. 

Kuroo wants to ask about the white little lines on Kenma’s flesh, but he doesn’t. He holds himself back from saying anything and sinks back into the kitchen, hoping Kenma didn’t notice him and from the call he was having he probably hadn’t. And, for the record, Kuroo doesn’t really think about it after that. It had been an off sighting, something he remembered sometimes, but something he forgot equally as fast. There were many scars decorating Kenma’s body, most from high school beatings and volleyball matches, so Kuroo never really thought twice about it. 

Maybe that’s where he clocks mistake number one. 

Kuroo doesn’t think twenty is everything everyone puts it out to be. He’s stressed with how close his graduation date is and exams. Kenma is up late most nights, later than Kuroo is used to. Kenma is still up at five in the morning, which is the time Kuroo has started getting up to go running. Kenma goes through his days more sluggish than Kuroo remembers, but Kuroo doesn’t say anything too consumed by his studies.

And when he looks back, that’s where he’ll clock mistake number two. 

“You need to start going to sleep earlier,” Kuroo says while making dinner one day. Kenma’s typing stops for a minute and when Kuroo glances over at him; his hands are hovering above the keys and he’s staring at the screen. He wipes his eyes and then his hands fall in his lap.

“Sorry. I’ll try,” Kenma says. When Kuroo turns back to start cooking, Kenma’s typing picks back up. They eat dinner quietly and when they return to bed that night, Kuroo watches Kenma take two ten milligram melatonin pills. 

When Kuroo wakes up at five in the morning, the other side of the bed isn’t cold, but it’s not warm. Kenma is absent from his arms and for a minute, Kuroo’s heart begins to stutter and his stomach sinks. But, he tells himself, Kenma is probably just in the living room or the kitchen. In his running wear, Kuroo finds Kenma slumped over his laptop at the kitchen counter. Kuroo feels the corners of his mouth tug up in relief and he presses a gentle kiss to the side of Kenma’s head before scooping him into his arms. Kenma seems to stir a little, before falling back into his dead sleep.

“‘m sorry for being so. Bad at this lately,” Kuroo murmurs, hand gripped loosely in Kenma’s as he crouches by the bed. “But I love you. I really do.” He kisses the top of Kenma’s forehead, leaving the apartment to go on his run. He comes back to Kenma rubbing the knot that has undoubtedly formed in his neck and cooking for the two of them. Kuroo jogs past him, kissing him on the cheek which makes Kenma smile. Despite the droop in Kenma’s eyes and the bags that could be mistaken for bruises, he looks happy right now. 

“I love you!” Kuroo shouts on his way to the shower. He doesn’t hear the breathy laugh Kenma lets out.

“I love you too!” He hears back. 

When Kuroo graduates, it might be the most relieved he’s ever been in his life. He cries in Kenma’s chest the night before out of relief and he cries in Kenma’s chest after the ceremony out of joy. Then, decidedly, they get drunk. Well, mostly Kuroo.

“Y’know,” Kuroo begins, his head in Kenma’s lap as he stares at his face. “I’m gonna marry you one day.” Kenma giggles, a smile tearing apart his face.

“Will you now?”

“Yes!” Kuroo says, throwing a hand out. Kenma laughs, open and loud and beautiful, making Kuroo’s stomach swirl. “And we’re gonna have a _fantastic_ wedding!”

“Who’s gonna be your best man?” Kenma asks, playing with the hem of Kuroo’s shirt. 

“Bokuto, of course. Who’s gonna be yours?” Kuroo says.

“I dunno. I haven’t really thought much about it,” Kenma shrugs. There’s something in his eyes that a more sober Kuroo would say something about, but inebriated Kuroo misses it almost completely. 

“Well, here’s your calling card, love! Start thinking about it,” Kuroo sings. Kenma huffs out a little laugh, hands moving to play with Kuroo’s fingers.

And Kuroo could clock that as mistake three, in the future. Not the admittance of the fact that Kuroo wanted to marry Kenma, but the fact he once again ignored the way Kenma seemed. 

Twenty-one is not much different from twenty. The only difference now, though, is that Kenma is now graduating and they can move somewhere else. Apartment hunting is a more viable option than house hunting, and so they do just that once Kenma graduates. Kenma’s home graduation ceremony is a much more sober event than Kuroo’s. 

“Okay, listen, it probably tastes like shit, but I did my best!” Kuroo exclaims, presenting an apple pie to Kenma. Kenma puts his hands over his face a while and Kuroo thinks he’s disappointed, before Kenma speaks.

“I swear to god, people are testing me today. I’m gonna start crying.” His voice is muffled by his hands.

“It’s because we’re proud of you!” Kuroo exclaims and Kenma removes his hands from his face and lets out a shuddering breath. There’s a small, private smile on his face that Kuroo has only seen a handful of times, and Kuroo drinks it in. The way Kenma’s eyes crinkle, the way the corners of his mouth lift, the self-satisfied look glimmering in his eyes. 

“I didn’t think I’d make it this far.” Kenma lets out a breath, eyes glancing to Kuroo. Kuroo gives him a tight and closed lip smile, his heart pounding in his chest with the honesty Kenma has brought him. A truth, served on a platter just like. A little sliver of something Kenma had been hiding and building up inside himself for so long—Kuroo had gotten a little piece of it. 

When they finally go apartment hunting, Kenma grows frustrated and Kuroo is distraught. They finally decide on _something_ and it ends up with them sleeping on the mattress on the floor of the bedroom, no sheets and surrounded by cardboard boxes. When they finally get to organizing things the next day, they make quiet and quick work of it—or try to. 

“Mmm, I’m happy,” Kenma says, sitting on the floor rather than the couch. 

“Yeah?” Kuroo says, sliding down to sit beside him.

“Yeah,” Kenma says, knocking his shoulder. “I’ve got you, we’ve got an apartment. It’s pretty much all I wanted, minus the fact we don’t have a cat.”

“I don’t think the landlord allows pets,” Kuroo says. Kenma deflates a little, looking rather disappointed. “We’ll get one when we get an actual house.”

“Or an apartment that allows pets,” Kenma says. Kuroo chuckles.

“ _Or_ an apartment that allows pets.”

Twenty-two brings domesticity and comfort, but there’s something off with it. Kenma, although still physically there, doesn’t ever feel present. His head is somewhere else, his sleeping habits are once again askew, and Kuroo feels at a loss. 

“Are you okay?” he asks one day while they’re eating dinner. 

“Hm? Oh, yeah,” Kenma says, blinking back to the present and sticking his fork in his mouth. Kuroo hums and narrows his eyes.

Clock mistake number four. 

And you could clock is mistake number five, six, seven, eight, so on and so forth, but Kuroo never catches on. He thinks that Kenma will return to normal, and sometimes he does. Sometimes he’s bubbly and laughing, he’s more like himself. But other times he’s distant and detached, but Kuroo tries. 

“Your eyes are so pretty,” Kenma says. 

“Thank you?” Kuroo says, confused. Kenma’s brows furrow and his mouth pulls together as they lay together, face-to-face.

“I just don’t think I’ve told you enough.”

Clock that as mistake number whatever.

The listless compliments start after that, always ending with “I don’t think I’ve told you enough”. It makes Kuroo’s brows raise and his heart stutter in his chest from confusion, but also from happiness. He’s not used to compliments from Kenma, although it goes unsaid all the things he loves about Kuroo by all the little things he does. 

“You wanna tell me what all these compliments are about?” Kuroo asks one day while he’s cooking dinner and Kenma is sitting on the counter.

“I just don’t think I tell you enough,” Kenma says. “There’s a lot of things I want to say, but they just get stuck in my throat.”

“Try writing them down,” Kuroo suggests. Kenma hums.

“Already tried it,” he says, waving a hand.

“Drawing them?” 

“Now that,” Kenma says, “I have done. That sketchbook is a scary and dark place to visit.”

Kuroo laughs. “I hope I get to see it one day.”

“You will.” Kuroo doesn’t exactly understand why the smile Kenma gives him is so sad.

Kuroo is twenty-three-years-old when his best friend dies. His best friend, who also happens to be his boyfriend. The man Kuroo had thought about marrying, owning a house with, owning a cat with. Raising a family with. Just like that, Kenma is gone from his grasp. 

The news shocks him. But maybe, in retrospect, he should have seen it coming. When he thinks back, he clocks his mistakes. One, two, three, four; all adding up to be too many to even forgive himself for. There’s nothing left behind for him. Just a pile of dirty laundry and sketchbooks that will remain unfinished. Out there, Kuroo curses whatever god had let him be so fucking blind, but he also thanks whatever god for allowing him to be the one to not find Kenma’s body in their apartment.

Guess the scheduled dinner with Shoyo should have been something he shouldn’t have overlooked. 

The only reason Kuroo returns to the apartment is to get clothes. He grabs the first thing in sight, not really caring if they’re dirty or clean, shoves them in his duffel bag and drives to his parents house. 

_Well_ , Kuroo thinks, _at least he did the dishes_. And when the tears start to roll down his cheeks and he sobs at a stoplight, he wonders what the outsiders looking in must think of him. What stories they’re making up for the man breaking down in his car. They don’t know he’s headed to his parents house for an indefinite time, ridden with an insurmountable burden of grief.

His mother opens the door for him. The look she gives him is enough to send him into another sobbing fit. In the open doorway of a home, a son breaks down in his mother’s arms. He goes through the day in haze. His brain feels fuzzy and he wants to turn around and tell Kenma things, but Kenma isn’t there for him to tell these things to. When he eats dinner, his stomach still feels empty and his head feels waterlogged. 

Kuroo doesn’t cry much after the first day. At least, not until the funeral. It’s an open casket. The Kozume’s had decided that and as much as Kuroo didn’t want that, he thought it might be good for him to see Kenma’s face one last time. In some sort of way, he thinks it’ll be closure unlike the clean dishes and dirty laundry and unfinished sketchbooks. 

It doesn’t help. In some ways, it only hurts more. 

He doesn’t speak at the funeral. He doesn’t think he can; his words would become flubbed and choked and Kenma doesn’t deserve something like that. Instead, he sits in the rows of people, the people he knows mixed with faces he doesn’t and becomes so numb he doesn’t feel real anymore. When he gets back to his parents house that night, he skips dinner and falls asleep for hours. He doesn’t know how long he sleeps, but when he wakes up he’s disoriented and hungry—everything still feels hazy. Like he’s in a daze, in some kind of dream. 

And when he feels ready enough, he goes back to the apartment. He packs his duffel bag, gives his parents a sad, tired smile, and wishes them well when he drives back to their apartment. The drive feels like a blink—he’s at his parents house and then he’s parking his car at the complex. He stares at the door, key in hand and he thinks about the smile Kenma gave him the last day he saw him. He thinks about the last “ _Bye! I love you!_ ” they had shared, and Kuroo feels like sobbing again. He doesn’t, though. He pushes the key into the lock and opens the door to an unchanged apartment. Kuroo steps in, takes a deep breath, and slides against the back of the door. 

He thinks about the dishes clean in the cabinet, some of the things last touched by Kenma, and then he thinks about the sketchbooks. The complete ones are shoved in a few boxes in the closet, ones from elementary school to before Kenma died. And Kuroo thinks about that sketchbook Kenma brought up a year ago, the one that he said was a scary place.

Kuroo scrambles up and makes his way to the bedroom, opening the closet and pulling boxes out. He searches and searches and searches, heart racing and eyes tearing up, until he finds the sketchbook. Sure, maybe Kuroo thinks that there might be a note in there for him, _something_ for him to find. But there’s nothing. Nothing but drawings from the last year of high school, where Kuroo wasn’t there. 

Kuroo doesn’t think he’s ever been so sad. 

When he hits the last pages, Kuroo lets out a gross sob. He hadn’t even felt the tears rolling down his cheeks. He puts the sketchbook back in the box, sitting in the closet with the dim light on. Kuroo thinks about the stars still stuck on his ceiling after all these years. He doesn’t remember them being alight at all the month he was in his room.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [twitter](twitter.com/wIwilbur) and [tumblr](https://bloodyknuckles.tumblr.com)


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